Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: EC:2.3.1.107 (DAT)
 1,471 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Although extensive research has already been done on the genetic bases of psychiatric disorders, little is known about polygenetic influences in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This article reviews molecular genetic studies relating to PTSD that were found in a literature search in Medline, Embase and Web of Science. Association studies have investigated 8 major genotypes in connection with PTSD. They have tested hypotheses involving key candidate genes in the serotonin (5-HTT), dopamine (DRD2, DAT), glucocorticoid (GR), GABA (GABRB), apolipoprotein systems (APOE2), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and neuropeptide Y (NPY). The studies have produced inconsistent results, many of which may be attributable to methodological shortcomings and insufficient statistical power. The complex aetiology of PTSD, for which experiencing a traumatic event forms a necessary condition, makes it difficult to identify specific genes that substantially contribute to the disorder. Gene-finding strategies are difficult to apply. Interactions between different genes and between them and the environment probably make certain people vulnerable to developing PTSD. Gene-environmental studies are needed that focus more narrowly on specific, distinct endophenotypes and on influences from environmental factors.
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PMID:The genetic background to PTSD. 1712 3

This review gives an overview of those in vivo imaging studies on synaptic neurotransmission, which so far have been performed on patients with mental and affective disorders. Thereby, the focus is on disease-related deficiencies within the functional entities of the dopaminergic, serotonergic, cholinergic, histaminergic, glutamatergic, or GABAergic synapse. So far, in vivo investigations have yielded rather inconsistent results on the dysfunctions of specific synaptic constituents in the pathophysiology of the diseases covered by this overview. Among the more congruent results are the findings of increased synthesis (8 out of a total of 12 reports) and release of dopamine (4 out of 4 reports) in the striatum of schizophrenic patients, which supports the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia. Results on both dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotransmission are inconsistent in both major depressive disorder and bipolar illness, and fail to clearly agree with the dopamine and/or serotonin hypothesis of depression. The majority of in vivo findings suggest no alterations (25 out of a total of 50 reports on serotonin synthesis, transporter as well as receptor binding) rather than a deficiency (merely 13 out of these 50 reports) of cortical serotonergic neurotransmission in major depression, whereas a decrease of cortical serotonergic neurotransmission (3 out of a total on 5 reports) can be assumed in bipolar illness. In borderline personality disorder, an increased binding of serotonin transporter binding was observed (merely 1 report). Due to the limited evidence, this result only with due caution may be interpreted as an indication for increased availability of serotonin in the synaptic cleft. Patients with Tourette syndrome exhibited increases of DAT binding in the neostriatum (5 out of 10 reports) increases of dopamine storage and dopamine release in the ventral striatum (1 report, each). Moreover, striatal D2 receptor binding was found to be decreased in advanced stages of the disease. Results, tentatively, may be interpreted in terms of an increased dopaminergic neurotransmission in the mesolimbic system. There is limited evidence of decreased dopamine synthesis in both children and adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (4 out of a total of 10 reports). These findings as well as the reduction of striatal dopamine release observed in adults (merely 1 report) are in line with the notion of mesocortical dopaminergic hypofunction in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Thereby, however, in children, results on dopamine synthesis indicate a deficiency in the ventral tegmentum rather than in the prefrontal cortex, whereas, with increasing age, the prefrontal cortex rather than the sites of origin of DAergic innervation become predominantly affected (merely 1 report, each). In anxiety disorders, varying results have been obtained for both pre- and/or postsynaptic dopaminergic, serotonergic and GABAergic binding sites. Thereby, results on posttraumatic stress disorder are homogenous reporting a decrease of GABA A receptor binding in all investigated brain regions including striatum, thalamus, neocortex and limbic system (2 out of 2 reports, each). Moreover, patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder displayed increases of dopamine transporter binding (2 out of 4 reports) and decreases of both D1 (merely 1 report) and D2 receptor binding (4 out of 5 reports), respectively. These findings, tentatively, may be interpreted in terms of an increased availability of synaptic dopamine in the neostriatum, which is compensated for both pre- and postsynaptically by increasing dopamine reuptake into the presynaptic terminal, and decreasing (inhibitory) signal transduction of efferent fibers. The observed reduction of GABA A receptor binding in frontocortical neurons (in 11 out of a total of 21 reports on anxiety disorders) is in line with this assumption. The inconsistency (and, partially, also incompleteness) of in vivo findings on mental and affective disorders constitutes a major result of this overview. Discrepancies indicate that the regulation state of synaptic constituents may not only vary between the subtypes of disorders but also between subject cohorts and, even, individual patients depending on variables such as the predominance of symptoms, medication status or onset and duration of disease. This, for the time being, limits the application of in vivo imaging methods for differential diagnosis of mental and affective disorders. In vivo imaging results on anxiety disorders, however, are of possible interest with regard to psychoanalysis, as they offer a neurochemical correlate for Freud's theories on the pathogenesis of anxiety- and compulsion-related disorders.
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PMID:In vivo imaging of synaptic function in the central nervous system: II. Mental and affective disorders. 1952 95

The objective of this study was to assess the generality of the association of DRD2 and DAT genes and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosis/symptom severity. Two hundred ethnic Armenians from 12 multigenerational families exposed to the catastrophic 1988 Spitak earthquake were studied. Common polymorphisms A1/A2 alleles of the DRD2 and '9' repeat allele of DAT gene were genotyped. Heritability, association and linkage were assessed using variance component genetic analyses. After adjusting for the covariates, the heritabilities of PTSD diagnosis and B and C category symptoms were: 0.37, 0.75 and 0.39 respectively. Category D symptoms were not heritable. Neither the DRD2 nor the DAT polymorphisms explained the variation seen in PTSD diagnosis, total PTSD symptom severity, and categories B and C symptom severities. These findings contradict prior reports of positive associations between both DRD2 and DAT, and PTSD.
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PMID:PTSD and dopaminergic genes, DRD2 and DAT, in multigenerational families exposed to the Spitak earthquake. 2055 17